Concentrations of cadmium, lead and zinc in livestock feed and organs around a metal production centre in eastern Kazakhstan.

This paper presents results of analysis of animal feed and meat (cattle, horse and sheep) products from a metal processing region (Oskemen) in east Kazakhstan. Samples were collected from a range of districts of differing distances from the main source of anthropogenic pollution and with differing underlying metal-containing geologies. Analyses for cadmium, lead and zinc revealed high concentrations in many feed and meat samples. Horse (an important food animal) samples had higher levels of contamination than cattle, which were higher than sheep. For example, mean cadmium concentrations in horse kidneys in one district were found to be 128 mg/kg and lead concentrations for liver 2.2 mg/kg. These, and other, results are generally higher than reported in many other studies in contaminated regions of eastern Europe and they can exceed State Maximal Allowed Concentrations by many times. As such levels of contamination pose a significant potential risk to human health, these results have formed the basis for subsequent research on levels of metal contamination in human tissues from affected populations.